How to stop culture wars: Costello says Dons saga shows need for bill of rights

Prominent Reverend Tim Costello says the fierce public debate that erupted with the appointment and resignation of Andrew Thorburn at Essendon Football Club has highlighted the need for a bill of rights to combat Australia’s constant culture wars.

Costello, who is chief advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform and the former CEO of World Vision Australia, said the nation needed to have a more nuanced conversation about balancing religious freedom and inclusivity than had unfolded since Thorburn’s departure from the Bombers.

Reverend Tim Costello, Andrew Thorburn and Victorian premier Daniel Andrews.Credit:The Age

“I think we’ve had a rush to judgment. I think it’s been probably unfair to Andrew. Sadly and depressingly, for me, it’s triggered the culture wars,” Costello told ABC Radio National on Thursday.

“We’ve got warriors on both sides wanting to fight the culture wars. And then there’s most of us, like me, who are the exhausted middle, who are going: ‘Who can win a culture war? What’s the point of this?’”

Thorburn, a former boss of National Australia Bank, was appointed as Essendon’s chief executive on Monday, but resigned a day later following criticism of his role as chairman of the conservative City on the Hill church, which is part of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne.

In sermons from 2013 published on the church’s website, a pastor likened abortion to a concentration camp, and said homosexuality was a sin.

Costello said, if Australia had a bill of rights the competing views of its complex, multicultural society would be managed in a more civil way than has been displayed this week.

“I think it’s outrageous we’re the only western democracy without one [a bill of rights]. That’s the way you actually deal with this, particularly in a multicultural society,” Costello said.

“A bill of rights is the mechanism to say how we actually settle this down and make sure that there is a legal framework for both respect and tolerance and freedom of religion and conscience.”

Costello, himself an Essendon fan, said he knew Thorburn during his tenure as NAB boss, a position the corporate high-flyer departed after adverse findings from the banking royal commission.

Andrew Thorburn resigned as Essendon’s chief executive the day after his appointment.Credit:Peter Braig

Costello said Thorburn was “very principled”, but acknowledged he “looked very ordinary” in the royal commission. Costello added Thorburn was well-connected in AFL circles, and he was “not surprised” he was appointed Essendon CEO.

Costello said the club should have paused and taken a week to consider the views of Thorburn’s church before asking him to choose between chairing the church and leading Essendon.

“When Essendon says ‘we want to be the most diverse club in the AFL’, they really now have a problem,” Costello said, adding the decision meant it would be difficult for a Muslim or conservative Jew to get a position on the club’s board.

“This has ripple effects that we just need to pause and think about.”

Costello said Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews also “probably didn’t realise” Thorburn’s City on the Hill church movement was part of the Anglican diocese and instead may have thought it was a “strange extremist group” when he criticised the church’s LGBTQI and abortion views.

Andrews, state Opposition Leader Matthew Guy and federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton sparred over the controversy on Wednesday, with the Liberal leaders painting the resignation as a form of religious persecution.

Costello, a senior fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity, said Thorburn’s personal views on same-sex marriage and abortion were unclear, saying it would be a misconceived to assume churchgoers agreed with the comments made by the pastor.

“I can tell you, just about every one of us who goes to church disagree with sermons, argue with what’s said in church, have very different views to what might even be on the website,” Costello said.

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